


I Don't Want to Set The World on Fire

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Series: fallout au [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fallout, Amputation, Body Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 10:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11183181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: The Institute catches up with Simmons.He refuses to go quietly.





	I Don't Want to Set The World on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon who prompted me “Fallout 4 verse with Grif and Simmons where something bad happens to the other and they can't prevent it :)” This takes place between the last two sections in “We Will All Go Together When We Go.”

There was no place in the Wasteland that was 100% safe. This was a fact Simmons had become painfully aware of since he stepped out of the Institute and was confronted with animals twice their normal size, and storms that spread radioactive fog with each fall of rain. He’d gotten used to the danger over the last few years, as much as someone could get used to such things. He killed radroaches with the nearest blunt object instead of shooting them from afar. His reaction to radioactive storms was to close the windows and tell Grif he’d have to run the shop today. There was a pistol under his pillow, a rifle under the shop counter, a knife in the register and a fat man under the floorboards.

 

Simmons was based off a pre-war man, but he no longer acted like one. He knew his life from here on out would be saturated with danger at every turn, and if he ever stopped carrying a gun, he was a dead man. The Institute, their presence a looming threat, was never far from his mind. Simmons might look like a man, but to the Institute he was a missing piece of technology. A synth they wouldn’t hesitate to drag back once they found him.

 

Honestly, Simmons surprised it took them this long to take a crack at him. He’d been hiding in plain sight for ages. He was starting to think they might have decided he wasn’t worth raiding Red city for.

 

He might be correct on that assumption, he thought, staring down an Institute pistol. The Courser and his cronies hadn’t shown until he was a few miles outside of city limits. He was in the middle of the Wastes now, the perfect place to sight to capture a poor sap kicking and screaming without anyone noticing. As far as the Wastes went, he had even less cover than usual, nothing but a few trees and tall grass to use as cover. The fact he managed to run as long as he did without getting shot was a fucking miracle in itself. He’d lost his weapons in the shootout and the only thing he still had on him was a dumb backpack to help carry his delivery to Blue city.

 

“Unit 1837,” the Courser said. He was wearing those fucking ridiculous black visors the Institute made them wear, a blank expression on his face. Simmons was positive the place was run by Matrix fanboys given the get up they used as uniforms. “You are not at your assigned location.”

 

Coursers also talked like they were in the Matrix, their tones flat, their words as simple as possible. _You are not at your assigned location_ . That was Courser for “ _you’re an escapee and we’re here to catch your ass, drag you to our base and wipe you until you only know five words.”_

 

Simmons wasn’t a fan of the plan, to say the least. He rather liked his vocabulary as it was.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Simmons said, trying not to flinch as the pistol raised an inch to hover right between his eyes. Lying was always worth a shot. Given the fact the Courser didn’t even twitch, he didn’t think his lie landed. “Okay, look, do we have to do this?”

 

“What do you mean?” the Courser said. He still didn’t move. The two early model Synths behind him were perfectly still, almost like statues. Simmons wondered how much thinking they did. Did they think more like him or to the guard robots that patrolled the central library? Were they true AI or just commands programed to repeat?

 

“This.” Lifting his hands as slow as possible as to not startle any of the synths, he gestured to the gang in front of him. “The whole “come with us” “I don’t want to” “we can do this the easy or the hard way” banter.  Because if we’re going that route, we going to have to have a stupid fight that ends with your friends needing a few spare parts and me very dead. Which probably will make me no longer useful for whatever shit you want me back for.” Simmons put his hands down so they rested in the grass. Clenching the strands helped him keep his voice steady. “I’m an old model, aren’t I? Scrap? Is scrap really worth all this effort?”  


The Courser was quiet for a moment. For a brief second of hope, Simmons thought he might have actually convinced a Courser to be lazy. But then he watched as the Courser lowered his gun to Simmons chest. His smile, one as rigid as the one of fake plastic store models, was chilling.

 

“You say this like you’re a threat.”

 

He had Simmons there. Simmons might have been a synth but unlike the Courser he was made to appear like a regular old human not a super solider. He didn’t have any fancy super strength or boosted speed, his intelligence, while high, was the fault of the man he was copied from. He was pathetic in a melee fight, useless with any short range weapons and only truly excelled with the heaviest of artillery possible. Heavy artillery was not meant for close range. As far as the Courser was concerned, there was no way out of this for Simmons that didn’t mean risking his own self preservation.

 

Unfortunately for the Courser, Simmons had a very different idea of what self preservation meant. For the Courser, for the Institute cronies who programmed his head, it was to come back in one piece with as little damage as possible. But for Simmons?

 

It was doing anything to escape going back to the Institute and forget everything he’d ever know. Like what the land used to look like pre-war. Or how Donut managed to ride a Deathclaw around and not get eaten. Sarge’s wild speeches every time Red City got a new shipment of cheap liquor.

 

The sound of Grif’s laugh.

 

Simmons lifted up his arms and feigning surrender. His backpack loosened and fell off one arm, hanging precariously on the other. “Alright, alright. But-”

 

The Courser lowered his pistol just a fraction, taking Simmons surrender as genuine. Simmons took his chance, throwing up his backpack into the sky behind him. Before the Synths could respond, he jumped forward, tackling the two first gen Synths and knocking them onto their backs. The Courser spun on his heel, pistol raised.

 

Tick-Tick-Tick.  
  
In the second before the backpack hit the ground, Simmons grinned, lugging the two gen one synths up for as much cover as he could get. The Institute might be smart, but apparently they weren’t smart enough to avoid attacking an explosives salesmen with nothing to lose. Especially without checking to see what he was delivering.

 

If he survived this, Simmons thought, Carolina would be pissed. She’d been trying to get her hands on a mini nuke for months. Shame Simmons had to waste it.

 

The backpack hit the ground.

 

An explosion.

 

Then nothing.

* * *

 

 

Simmons woke up three days later down his right arm and leg.

 

Carolina found him, he’d learn as he recovered from being blown to all hell. A mini nuke explosion attracts attention and when she’d gone to check it out, she’d found Simmons in a crater, surrounded by shards of gen one synths and a fried Courser. The only reason Simmons hadn’t bled out was pure luck. By the time she’d gotten him to Blue City, Radiation Sickness almost finished the job the bomb didn’t.

 

Carolina delivered the news about his arm and leg like she was announcing a death. Church would be able to find him robotic replacements, he was a crafty old piece of junk, but Simmons found he didn’t mind the loss much even if Church’s mad scheme didn’t work.

 

Two lost limbs was better than losing your entire sense of self.

 

Grif arrived a day later, smuggled into Blue City with a trench coat and a gas mask. He looked like shit when he entered Simmons room and for a whole two hours he didn’t say a word.

 

“They’re never not going to be after you, are they?” He said when Church and Carolina left to do some digging on a case. Kai was outside in the office, helping sort files. Simmons knew she could probably hear every word. Not that it mattered; she’d never bring it up to them. Kai was many things, but she had a surprising amount of tact when it came to other people’s business.

 

“Yeah, probably.” Simmons said. There was no point in lying. For a terrible moment he thought Grif might get up and leave, the fact Simmons would always be a wanted man too much to consider. But instead he reached into his bag and pulled out his Grifshot. Started sharpening the blade.

 

“If Church gets these limbs working, no more solo deliveries. Store can be shut down for a few days; we make shit sales when one of us is gone.’

 

To anyone else, it would seem a callous statement. But Simmons heard it for what it was.

 

_Next time they come for you, they’re gonna have to go through me too._

 

 


End file.
